


Cake

by shimere277



Category: Drake's Venture (1980)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-19
Updated: 2009-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-04 14:52:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shimere277/pseuds/shimere277
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A tale from the childhood of Sir Francis Drake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cake

  
  
  
**Current mood:** |   
cold  
---|---  
  
_ **Cake** _

 

            "Make speed, lad!" William Hawkins commanded.  "We must not be late.  William Wynter is a most important personage."  Young Francis scrambled to keep up with his uncle, despite his short legs and the conspicuous holes in his shoes.  The packages he was carrying were heavy, and the stones in the road hurt his feet.  Still, he did not complain.  At twelve, he was almost a man, and was right lucky (as he had often been told) to be taken into his uncle's household as his mother could never feed the hungry mouths of her many sons in the absence of their father.  
            When they turned the corner, Francis gaped at the sight of the house, one of Plymouth's most prepossessing, a house fitting for the surveyor of the Royal Navy.  Hawkins, full-time merchant and part-time pirate, was overjoyed to get an invitation from the great man.  It meant that his own fortunes were on the rise.  And young Francis was happy to tag along, carrying the numerous gifts and voluminous sea charts; he sensed with instincts uncanny for one so young that the opportunities for a mariner were limitless if he were flexible in his beliefs and practices, and able to make the right sorts of connections.  
            Wynter's manservant answered the door.  Francis noticed immediately that the servant's eyes roamed over Hawkins, taking in his apparel, narrowing somewhat in condescension.  Hawkins was bustling and obsequious, not noticing that his fortunes were compromised ever-so slightly before he had gotten his foot through the door.  Francis scowled.  He hadn't the vaguest idea what was wrong – it was a cipher to him, some secret language shared by those who had, one more thing they kept from those who had not.  
            "What an unpleasant child," said the manservant, glancing at Francis.  "He hath the look of a gargoyle about him."  
            "He is a ward of my family," said Hawkins apologetically.  "Orphaned.  He ne'er had a man about the house to teach him proper manners, and his mother, my sister…"  
            "Indeed," said the servant.  "He can leave the packages in the entry.  It might be best to send him into the garden, with the other children."  
            Francis was steered through the lower hallways, past the servants' quarters, out towards the kitchen.  He could hear men's laughter coming from the dining room, and he surreptitiously snuck a glance inside.  He barely noticed the room's occupants at first, so enthralled was he at the polished wood furniture, elegant tapestries, and the gleaming plate and crystal – crystal! – which lay upon the table.  Wynter was retrieving a cup from the sideboard, sharing a drink with a thin, elegant, nervous-looking man who already seemed a bit too much in his cups.  Francis scrambled down the hall quickly, before he should be caught spying.  
            As he entered the garden, he was arrested by a most peculiar sight.  A lady of some breeding was stooped besides a trellis, engaged with a neighborhood cat.  What was so strange to Francis was that it seemed she was talking to the cat – not "Hey, Puss Puss," the way ordinary folk talked to cats, but having a conversation.  It gave him the chills.  
            Suddenly, Francis felt a shove from behind, and he went sprawling forward in the mud.  "My papa says she is a witch," came a voice from behind him.  Francis scrambled to his feet, trying fruitlessly to remove the dirt from his breeches, but succeeding only in spreading it more.  The voice came from Nicholas Wynter, son of the master of the house.  "Not that the business of a gentlewoman is meet for thy likes."  The lad grinned at Francis' discomfiture.  "Want to know what Papa says of thee?"  
            "Your father speaks of me?" asked Francis, befuddled.  
            "Well, of thy father, anyway," said young Nick, his grin growing wider.  "He says that thy father is a thief."  
            "'Tis a lie.  My father was a minister of the Lord," said Francis, stiffly.  
            "Callest thou my father a liar?" said Nick, his voice raising.  "In sooth, I say that thy father was driven from Tavistock for the theft of a horse."  
            Young Francis was about to meet the insult with his fist, but the cook's voice came from the kitchen, interrupting them.  "Ho, boy – make thyself of use.  Fetch some leeks from the garden, and then mop the kitchen stair."  
            Francis ran off, Nicolas' laughter ringing as his ears burned.  He hadn't really expected to be treated as a guest among these fine people, but after the taunting of the young master, the shame of his inferior status ate at his stomach like a corrosive.  From the vegetable beds, he could see the children playing in the garden - Wynter's own brood and the children of his guests.  
            After the chores, Francis was given a bowl of soup and allowed to eat in the pantry.  It was good soup, with a large hunk of stew beef.  He wasn't likely to get that at home.  He would have been most content if he hadn't seen the roast on its way to the dining room.  It was more perfect to him than any painting he had ever seen.  It was the most perfect thing ever – until he saw the cake.  
            It was unfair.  It wasn't his fault that his father had lost his ministry and had to shift for himself.  And when he found work, he would send money back to his family.  He would.  The story about the horse-theft wasn't true.  Was it?  
            His eyes welled with tears.  
            He was roused from his reverie by the slightest of stirrings near the door.  It was a nicely-dressed lad, about Francis's age, with a book tucked under one arm and a plate bearing a half-eaten piece of cake in the other hand.  If Francis had not been in the pantry, no one would have noticed his entrance, so quiet was he.  "Oh!" he exclaimed.  "I knew not thou wert therein.  I simply sought a place to read undisturbed.  I am sorry to have interrupted thy supper."  
            "I shall not disturb your reading," said Francis, whose eyes inevitably fixed upon the cake.  
            The young lad smiled at him.  "Here," he said, pushing the plate towards Francis.  
            "Really?" said Francis, wary of some trick.  
            "I can get more, if I desire.  Consider it a token so that thou shalt not betray my hiding place."  The young man pulled up a stool and opened his book.  
            Francis attacked the cake with gusto.  It was a cream cake, filled with wild strawberries, and he couldn't remember when he had last had something so delicious.  Once he had finished, his attention was drawn to his companion.  He stared at the boy's pale, white hands, the lush fringes of his lovely eyelids, the girlish lips stained red from the strawberries.  He wondered what it would be like to have such clothes, to have cake whenever he wanted it, to have his own book.  After a moment, he gathered up his courage, leaned forward and whispered, "What is so funny about Master Hawkins' clothing?"  
            "His stockings," Francis' companion replied, not looking up.  
            "Those are his finest silk stockings," said Francis.  "He wears them once yearly."  
            "Their age is obvious, for having been well-stretched, they droop, and Master Hawkins knows not enough to adjust the garters."  The young man turned the page of his book.  
            Francis stared at his own stockings, yellowed and now covered with mud.  He was sorely ashamed.  His companion's stockings were bleached white, perfectly smooth, accentuating the perfection of the young man's legs.  Looking at those stockings made Francis feel warm all over.  He wanted so many things, all at once, things he could not put words to.  
            "Art not yet finished with thy soup?" said the cook, bursting into the pantry.   And then, in shock, "Young Master Thomas!  What are you doing in here?"  
            The boy raised a haughty, indifferent eyebrow.  "Conducting a mass.  I am _reading_.  Hast never seen a book?"  
            The servant stared at his shoes.  "You will dirty your fine ruffs in a place like this."  
            "I beg to differ, sirrah.  I never dirty myself."  
            Francis looked down quickly, hiding a smirk.  At that moment, what he wanted most was to go outside in the muddy garden and wrestle with Thomas.  It wasn't a malicious thought, not like what he felt for Nicholas – someday, Drake would make that snot-arsed little bastard eat excrement.  It was simply that Drake wanted to see this beautiful, composed young man lose that composure.  He was certain he could easily best the skinny boy in a contest.  Francis envisioned himself straddling Thomas, holding him down in the dirt.  His face flushed bright pink.  
            Such pleasant thoughts were rudely interrupted by sharp anguish.  The cook was pulling on his ear.  "Thou art finished with thy sup, young dragon.  Get thee to work."  
            Francis Drake was pulled out the door, dragged back into the squalor of the life he knew.  But Thomas didn't laugh – he sat there gazing with wide, curious eyes, as if trying to understand this glimpse beyond the closely guarded circle of his existence.  But when the door closed, he returned to his book, the incident forgotten.  
            Francis Drake never forgot.  Those eyes haunted him in dreams; the young man became a symbol of everything he wanted to have, to be, everything which was held just out of his reach.  When his cousin John Hawkins became close friends with George Wynter, Drake knew that someday his path would again cross with that of the gentleman Thomas Doughtie.  And when it did, it would be on Drake's terms.


End file.
